Map It Out for Your Reader

by Marina J. Lostetter

“Lost” is an interesting topic to pick for a theme issue, because the concept is truly universal. We’ve all been lost at some point in our lives. Perhaps it was at a shopping center as a small child, or during a road trip as an adult. Most people can remember getting physically lost at least once, but many of us get mentally lost on a much more regular basis. Every time we, as readers, open a book or start a new short story, we enter into a state of limbo--we don’t know where the writer has put us, and we don’t know where the writer intends for us to go. Essentially, we’re lost.

In most cases there are a few sign posts: genre indicates what literary continent we’re on, and the subgenre suggests climate; a blurb might hint at what kinds of potholes and roadblocks are ahead. But beyond that we’ve been dropped into the middle of nowhere with a blindfold on and a cell phone that only dials one number: the author’s.

The author’s job is to get the reader to understand their surroundings as soon as possible, so that they can navigate the story’s terrain without distraction. Grounding the reader, while inviting them to explore, is the key to a good opening in fiction. Conciseness, clarity, and balance are the cornerstones of writer-to-reader communication, and these are achieved through a synergy of reader-questions and author-answers.

When I write, I try to touch on the basic who, what, when, and where, within the first three to ten percent of the story. These are the first items of interest that pop into a reader’s mind. Who is this story about? What is happening (in particular, what is the conflict)? When is it happening? Where is it happening? Why and how usually rear their heads not long after, but they aren’t as crucial when first introducing a reader to a new piece.

Some authors find themselves getting bogged down in the where, which leads to the type of beginning that’s all about setting. In this instance, all the reader sees is scenery.

Some writers get stuck on the who, which often results in the author failing to acknowledge that there’s a world beyond the internal dialogue rolling around in a character’s head.

Writers who get consumed with the what have a tendency to open with The Epic Fight Scene, The Hunt, or The Scientific Conundrum without acknowledging that their characters are anything more than vehicles for the action.

The when focus becomes a trap with historical settings, as the author might have a tendency to try and over-authenticate.

Why and how-centric authors are all about back story--an aspect which is often irrelevant to an opening, even if it’s relevant to the greater plot.

And then there are writers who, instead of becoming hyper-focused on one question, purposely evade the four key questions. They believe that withholding information is how one creates mystery, but it doesn’t. It creates confusion.

The answers don’t have to be given in their entirety right out of the gate--that is where the author shows their skill in regulating the flow of information. The trick is achieving balance--making sure that one element doesn’t overshadow the others. It’s how these components work together that ensures the reader is secure enough in the basics to let the author lead them through the more abstract parts of storytelling--transforming a lost audience member into an engaged voyager. Other gratifications can be delayed if the four immediate questions of who, what, when, and where are answered as soon and as skillfully as possible.

Marina J. Lostetter’s short fiction has been accepted to venues such as Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future, and Penumbra. She currently lives in Arkansas with her husband, Alex.

To learn more about Marina, please visit her website and follow her on Twitter.

A Moment with Leah Rhyne

What's your favourite thing about speculative fiction and why?

I tell my child all the time that I’m terrible at picking favorite anythings. Seriously, I can’t even pick a favorite color – it changes daily. When I’m feeling bright and happy, I love yellow. If I’m a little down, perhaps brown, or grey. On neutral days I go for blues or greens.

I can’t pick a favorite thing about speculative fiction because I love it all, because in speculative fiction, anything can happen. Anything.

Want to go back in time? See the world as it was a thousand years ago? Then go ahead – build a time machine. If you’re writing speculative fiction, you can. You can even choose to ignore the complexities of paradoxes, of changing the past and thus the future, because in your own world, anything goes.

Want to create a new race of alien creatures that inhabit planets in a distant galaxy? Go for it! The weirder the better! Make them look like insects. Make them look like jiggling puddles of Jello. You can even make them look like giant, fuzzy bunnies if you want. It’s your world.

One of my favorite science fiction books of the moment is John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, in which humans get genetically engineered to have green skin and super-strength. He turned people into superhero soldiers, and with them he tried to rule the universe. And why not? It was his universe.

Want to bring to light all the terrifying skeletons that inhabit your deepest, darkest dream closets? Do it. Scare us. In speculative fiction, there’s room for all the monsters.

Picture Stephen King, creating a monster that takes the form of a clown with razor-sharp teeth and claws like knives. Picture him scaring a little girl so much with the resulting novel, she had no choice but to grow up and become a writer herself, to give shapes to her own inner demons.

Now try to imagine a world without speculative fiction. A world that never included the stories of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells or Edgar Allen Poe or H.P. Lovecraft. Imagine a world without outlets for our fears, our dreams.

It’s a drab place, don’t you think? A place where people might never have considered space travel achievable, that might never have made it to the moon, let alone Mars. A place without a ticking telltale heart or a time machine.

Picture a place without Aliens, without Back to the Future and Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. I wouldn’t want to live in that world.

My favorite thing about speculative fiction is all of it. Really. I mean that.

Because the sky is not the limit, in speculative fiction. Only our imaginations are.

Leah Rhyne is a Jersey girl who's lived in the south so long she's lost her accent...but never her attitude. Her first novel, Undead America Book 1: Zombie Days, Campfire Nights, released in October, 2012. When not writing she can be found playing with her daughter and husband, running, or drinking good red wine.

Learn more about Leah Rhyne on her website. Stay connected on Twitter.

Leah's book Undead America Book 1: Zombie Days, Campfire Nights, is available HERE.

Make Them Feel

by Heidi Kneale

One day my film professor said to us, "Here is a piece of white paper and a ping-pong ball. I want you to photograph it."

Okay. White ping-pong ball on white paper. First thing through my mind: why? Second thing through my mind: how hard can it be?

Pretty difficult, when there's a catch. "Everyone's shot must look different."

So while the rest of us were trying for closeups, long shots, angular shots, and all sorts of funny shooting, one bright spark went off on his own.

When he'd come back, he had his shot. In a dark room, he'd lit the ping-pong ball with a blue key light and a red fill light from down low.

He succeeded in showing the ping-pong ball in a different light. It was dark, moody and evocative.

Unlike all the other plain white shots of ping-pong balls, this one stirred something in our souls. And he walked away with an A+ for the assignment.

This ability to evoke emotions in our audience is also vital in writing. We want our audience to feel empathy with our characters and take them on the same journey. The hook that grabs a reader is the one that entices them to make an emotional investment in the story.

Open your favourite novel and read the first page. What emotions stir in your heart? From the very beginning, that author managed to grab you and never let go.

As authors, we don't have the benefit of lighting to create mood and atmosphere. We must rely on words--words with subtle shadings and similar meanings to elicit an emotion.

What emotion/s do you feel from the first page of your favourite novel? What words bring out that emotion?

Picking on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a favourite novel of many a romantic soul, her first opening lines are:

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

Certain words will evoke certain emotions. "Universally acknowledged," "must be," "truth so well fixed", "considered as the rightful property", will make people react.

The reactions will be different from person to person. But they will react. Pride and Prejudice is all about characters' emotional reactions, and Austen does an excellent job in stirring these various emotions in her readers as well.

As you read through this month's issue of Penumbra, make a note of your favourite story and what emotions it stirs within you.

Meanwhile, ever thought about photographing a ping-pong ball?

Heidi Kneale is an Australian author of moderate repute. By day she works computer miracles for the local library. The rest of the time she writes books and raises babies.

Learn more about Heidi on her website.

A Moment with Samuel Marzioli

Why did you choose to write speculative fiction instead of another genre?

Perhaps it started in childhood. That always seems like the time period people dredge up to explain their current proclivities--some oddity post-infancy which maintained its edge throughout the years. And if so, who am I to go against the grain? Yes, let’s say it started in childhood, and we can blame my parents.

I was first introduced to spec fic when I was four and five. From books to movies, to comics, and books on tape, or even stories on vinyl. It was never a question for me if I would read or watch or listen. Only when. Because speculative fiction was a seamless part of my life, no different than school or bedtime, and I enjoyed it absolutely.

I remember when my family had just bought a brand new laserdisc, and we invited our family friends over for dinner and a movie. The dinner I’ve long since forgotten (maybe spaghetti?), but the movie stayed with me ever since. It was Star Wars, original and unbutchered, and--even for a kid whose idea of a great time was any 80’s video game turned cartoon--I was pretty damn impressed. Sometime later that year I remember sliding out of bed one dark night and making my way to the living room after a fit of sleeplessness. There I found my father reclining on the couch and on the TV another sci-fi film that I hadn’t seen before. I asked my dad if I could stay up and watch it too, and he said yes. That film was Ridley Scott’s Alien.

Many nights my brother and sister and I would snuggle up beside our parents in bed and they’d read us works by the masters of children’s speculative fiction: Roald Dahl, E. Nesbit, C. S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum and more. Sometimes they’d even pull out a few issues from one of their many long white, and dusty, comic boxes and we’d follow along the pictures as they read to us Judge Dredd or Groo the Wanderer. In fact, it was Judge Dredd and Groo more than anything else that made me want to read. Because I soon became impatient waiting for my family to absorb the next adventure from these characters of absurdist sci-fi and ridiculous sword and sorcery, respectively.

From this groundwork, and the accumulation of a few more years, I branched off into more mature works as well. There was some H. P. Lovecraft, Poe, and Shakespeare thrown into the mix, as well as Stephen King. Maybe a few books by Clive Barker, or Michael Crichton, and of course Douglas Adams and Robert Aspirin. Probably a ton of books of pseudo histories of supernatural beasties, and various bits of parapsychology, by the likes of Harry Price, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Cesare Lombroso, and Montague Summers.

If this seems a disparate mix, it’s because that’s how it began and that’s how it continued, and to this day that’s what I write. One day I may type a tale of terror involving spilled guts with gratuitous descriptions, the next a humorous space opera involving intergalactic toys and the enthusiasts that collect them. The fact is speculative fiction is a rich and rewarding set of genres, the pixie dust that infuses the mundanity of this world with true, honest-to-God magic. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Anything!

‘Cept maybe a literary book deal.

Samuel Marzioli still does all of his writing on a laptop outside, under an umbrella. His fiction has appeared several times in Penumbra eMag, once in Stupefying Stories, and is forthcoming in Stupefying Stories Presents, Space & Time Magazine and the "A Darke Phantastique" anthology by Cycatrix Press.

Learn more about Samuel and his current projects from his blog.

DOING IT ALL OVER AGAIN

by Bruce Golden

When you talk about "wishing you had it to do over again" or going back and changing one thing in your life, you have to realize that you would be tinkering with your entire timeline. It's like the time paradoxes of countless science fiction tales. You change one little thing and that alters an infinite amount of outcomes.

We've all thought about "what if I hadn't done this" or "if I had done that," but have we really pondered the consequences of such do-overs? You could wish you never entered into that failed marriage, but then you wouldn't have the children you now have and love so dearly. You might have had aspirations for a different profession, but who knows if you would have ended up a disbarred lawyer or a disgraced politician.

Like anyone, I have regrets--things I wished I'd done differently. If I were to fantasize such a scenario (without having to worry about the consequences of the "butterfly effect"), I would wonder how my career would have evolved, had I made different choices.

As a teenager, I decided I wanted to write science fiction and fantasy, and follow in the footsteps of my favorite authors at the time--Roberts Heinlein and Howard. However, my initial foray into fiction was disrupted by being drafted into the Army. When I got out, I started working in various journalistic endeavors to help pay my way through college. One job led to another, and, before I knew it, I was making a living working in newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV. Along the way I tinkered with fiction, but I was supporting a wife and a son, and there were bills to be paid. It wasn't until the turn of the century that I found myself in a position to walk away from journalism and concentrate solely on my first love--fiction.

All those years working as a professional writer/editor/producer certainly improved my skills, and, without a doubt, made it possible to be the writer I am today. But I often wonder where I'd be, and what I might have written, had I devoted myself exclusively to fiction all those years.

Novelist, journalist, satirist, Bruce Golden’s short stories have been published more than 100 times across 11 countries and 15 anthologies. Asimov’s Science Fiction described his second novel, “If Mickey Spillane had collaborated with both Frederik Pohl and Philip K. Dick, he might have produced Bruce Golden’s Better Than Chocolate”--and about his novel Evergreen, "If you can imagine Ursula Le Guin channeling H. Rider Haggard, you'll have the barest conception of this stirring book, which centers around a mysterious artifact and the people in its thrall." You can read more of Golden's stories in his recently published collection Dancing with the Velvet Lizard. Visit Bruce on his website.

If I Could Redo One Thing In My Life

What would I change?

by Julia Nolan

I wouldn’t have stopped writing.

Let me provide necessary context. From eighteen to twenty-four, I was convinced that I was meant to be a writer. Although I had a very sensible engineering degree and a good job in my field, I also had literary aspirations. To achieve them, I set some goals. I’d write for an hour a day, then submit my stories. I figured success was soon to follow.

The hour a day soon became an hour a few times a week. My goal to receive feedback was stymied by my conviction that critiquers “didn’t get it”. And the vast majority of my submissions came back with form rejections. So after six years, I gave up. I still hadn’t done more than publish in a few token paying markets. The evidence was clear; I was a terrible writer. Deciding this was not easy for me, I abandoned all aspirations for nearly a decade, before I started writing again with a more mature perspective.

And what perspective was this? Mostly the realization that I’d been lazy. I had assumed since I was reading at three and writing at five, the first time I tried my hand at fiction writing, I’d be genius. What I hadn’t taken into account was that I’d thrown myself into an incredibly competitive field without any practice or training. (Consider what would happen if I had decided to perform open heart surgery despite my lack of a medical background. After all, I’d been studying science all my life, and had even completed a high school biology class. Surely open heart surgery isn’t that much more difficult…it sounds ridiculous when put that way, and yet a similar arrogance infected me.)

The second time around, I looked at things differently. I sought critique, even when it hurt, from writers whose work I respected. I read short stories and novels with a critical eye, trying to figure out what made them worthy of publication. I gave critiques, hoping to improve my own ability to judge good from bad. Eventually I applied for (and received), a position at Allegory which allowed me to get a feel for what it is like to read hundreds of submissions and accept only a very few. In short, I learned patience and humility.

By doing this, I improved.

Now I suspect I’ll never be Shakespeare or Stephen King (they’re both one of a kind). And I doubt I’ll ever be able to support myself by writing alone. (Fortunately, I like my day job.) But…I’ve gotten two stories accepted in publications I love and suspect that if I continue working more success will follow. Probably not as fast as I’d like, but there’s no hurry, either. If I continue to practice, I will continue to improve. And good publications buy good stories.

Why do I regret my earlier arrogance if it did no long lasting damage? Because if I had not wasted all those years, I’d be a decade ahead of where I am now. More importantly, writing has always been a source of pleasure. It helps to ground my thoughts, and to stretch my mind and imagination. Giving that up for nearly a decade because I thought I wasn’t “good” was a self-destructive act. If we only did the things we instantly excelled at, we’d do nothing.

Julia Nolan is a project manager of epic proportions. The other ways in which she wastes time include making elaborate costumes, dancing, singing, and playing with chemistry. She had work appear in Mars Dust and will have stories in Penumbra and Stupefying Stories. She also edits for the ezine, Allegory.

The Patriotic Zombie

by Kristen Saunders

Super Bowl Sunday is about as American as you can get. As I sit watching the commercials and writing this story (a few weeks before you’ll see it) I am reminded of other pieces of culture that are truly American, Harleys, muscle cars, country music, boy scouts, apple pie, and zombies. That’s right zombies.

America has been obsessed with these brain dead, flesh eating, unsexy hobblers for a long time. The fascination began when an American named William Seabrook wrote a wildly popular book in 1929 called The Magic Island. His story talked about Haitian voodoo witch doctors raising the dead to do some back breaking labor, a far cry from today’s popularized flesh eaters. Never-the-less within the U. S. these rotting undead were popular and continue to this day to gain a devoted following.

Zombies are now a part of mainstream. I have seen my friends doing zombie makeup as a hobby outside of the haunted month of October. Zombie crawls, or large flash mobs of costume zombies, have become popular in recent years. The larges zombie crawl on record happened on the thirteenth of October in the Twin Cities. The Guinness Book of World Records has the count at 8,027 people gathering together, but it is believed there were almost 30,000 participants total outside of the official counting area.

A new event based around trying to maintain your humanity is the nationwide 5k Zombie infested obstacle course called Run For Your Lives. It travels from state to state and involves running from zombified actors who are trying to steal your life (which are represented by flags around your waist.) There are survival kits with extra lives hidden throughout the course, though with zombies all around traversing this course is a one of kind experience. Nothing will train you to be better prepared if you’re caught on a camping trip at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.

However, for those sitting at home the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have some suggestions for survival. The government is taking the zombie threat seriously and it wants you to be ready for the outbreak. The CDC recommends you prepare an emergency kit in your house stocked with food, water, and medical supplies. They even commissioned a short educational comic to show the importance of preparedness for the moaning horde called Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic. It’s a free read and mildly entertaining, as it very much resembles a B-movie.

According to ABC news Home Land Security took it one step further by doing a rather costly scrimmage during last year’s counter terrorism summit. Each ticket was a thousand bucks and was paid by American tax dollars. After all what’s more important than training against terrifying flesh eaters?

Not to worry though, while the scrimmage was part of the thousand dollar summit, it was not the only thing money was spent on. If you want real misappropriation of funds, you should look no further than the subsidies going into the technology industry. Zombies rake in about five billion dollars a year into the American economy according to 24/7 Wall Street. There are books, movies, comics, costumes, art, and some very popular video games that fund the industry. There’s a cult following and an almost guaranteed income to anyone who puts out a product of even mediocre value. Despite that trend, The New York Times reports that video game developers who, “straddle the lines between software development, the entertainment industry, and online retailing,” get some major funding from the U.S. Government. That money goes to more than just zombie video games, but in the end parents weren’t thrilled when they learned their money was going towards the promotion of these violent creatures.

Whatever your disposition towards them, zombies are here to stay in American culture. Horror writers should take note that, should you wish it; there are several immersing experiences out there to inspire you. For now I will go back to watching the half time show. I’ve got plans that involve me, guacamole, bean dip, and a bit mindless entertainment.

Sources: 24/7 Wall Street, ABC, and The New York Times.

Kristen Saunders is an intern Penumbra EMag. She loves to write science fiction in her free time and recently started her blog The Musings of a Growing Writer.